Packaged food product and method of producing the packaged food product

ABSTRACT

A packaged food product includes a container and a food product. The container has a rim and at least one wall extending away from the rim. The at least one wall defines a storage area, and the food product is retained within the storage area such that the food product is in contact with the at least one wall. The at least one wall is readily deformable by a hand of a user to reduce a volume of the storage area. Reducing the volume of the storage area causes the food product to exit the storage area. The container includes an integral tool portion for breaking up the food product after removal from the storage area. The food product can be a wet cat or dog food.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention pertains to the art of food production and, moreparticularly, to packaging for food products.

Food products are often packaged prior to sale. Such packaging can takethe form of cans, jars, boxes or bags, for example. In the case of petfood, such as wet cat or dog food, cans are a common packaging type.When the wet food is served, consumers frequently remove the food fromthe can and place it into or onto a bowl, dish or plate, for example,where the food may then be broken up. This requires a spoon or fork,both for the serving and the chopping. However, many consumers wouldprefer not to use a utensil for this task that they themselves also eatwith, necessitating the ownership of one or more dedicated pet foodutensils. At the very least, this process results in additional dirtyutensils that must be cleaned. Accordingly, it would desirable toprovide a way for consumers to serve wet pet food without using autensil.

In addition, one reason why a consumer might use a utensil to serve wetpet food from a can is that the can contains multiple servings and theconsumer only wishes to serve part of the can's contents. Accordingly,it would also be desirable to provide wet pet food in single-servepackaging.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention achieves the above goals through the use ofpackaging that is readily deformable by hand, with the deformationcausing the contents of the packaging to exit the packaging. Preferably,the packaging is sized to provide a single serving. Additionally, thepackaging includes structure to help break up the contents after theyhave been dispensed.

In particular, a packaged food product comprises a container and a foodproduct. The container includes a rim and at least one wall extendingaway from the rim. The at least one wall defines a storage area. Thefood product is retained within the storage area and in contact with theat least one wall. The at least one wall is configured to be readilydeformable by a hand of a user to reduce a volume of the storage area.The packaged food product is configured such that reducing the volume ofthe storage area causes the food product to exit the storage area. Also,a portion of the rim extends beyond the at least one wall, preferably bya predetermined distance of at least 1 centimeter, to establish anintegral utensil or tool portion. The food product can take variousforms, such as a wet cat food or a wet dog food. In a form of theinvention, the tool portion of the rim includes at least one tine forbreaking up the food after the food has been removed from the containerbut prior to serving.

Additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will becomemore readily apparent from the following detailed description ofpreferred embodiments thereof when taken in conjunction with thedrawings wherein like reference numerals refer to common parts in theseveral views.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of two packaged food products produced inaccordance with the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of one of the packaged food products, witha lid partially peeled away to expose a food product.

FIG. 3 is a top view of a container of the packaged food product of FIG.2, with the food product omitted.

FIG. 4 is a side view of the container.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the container showing the containerbeing used to break up the food product.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein.However, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments aremerely exemplary of the invention that may be embodied in various andalternative forms. The figures are not necessarily to scale, and somefeatures may be exaggerated or minimized to show details of particularcomponents. Therefore, specific structural and functional detailsdisclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting but merely as arepresentative basis for teaching one skilled in the art how toconstruct and employ the present invention.

As discussed above, pet food, such as wet cat or dog food, is commonlypackaged in cans. To serve such pet food, a consumer would use aseparate utensil to remove the pet food from the can and break it up. Insome cases, only a portion of the pet food is removed from the can. Thisprocess necessitates the cleaning of the utensil and, for someconsumers, a dedicated pet food utensil. The present invention wasdeveloped to address this problem. Specifically, the present inventionprovides a container with a storage area for retaining a food productand at least one wall that is readily deformable by hand to reduce avolume of the storage area. Reducing the volume of the storage areacauses the food product to exit the storage area. In other words, theuser can squeeze the container to dispense the food, avoiding the needfor a separate utensil. The container is sized to hold a single servingof the food product. Therefore, the user does not need to try to serveonly a portion of the food product. In addition, part of the rim of thecontainer extends beyond the at least one wall to establish anintegrally formed utensil or tool portion, preferably including one ormore tines. This structure can be used to break up the food productafter it has been dispensed, again avoiding the need for a separateutensil.

With reference to FIG. 1, two packaged food products 100 and 101 areshown. Packaged food products 100 and 101 are attached to one anotherand can be sold as a unit. However, it should be recognized thatpackaged food products 100 and 101 can also be sold individually or inlarger quantities (with additional packaged food products attachedthereto).

Packaged food products 100 and 101 are functionally identical but theirshapes are mirror images of one another, with the plane of symmetrybeing located at their point of attachment. In particular, packaged foodproduct 100 has a rim 105 and a lid 110 in sealing contact with rim 105,while packaged food product 101 has a rim 106 and a lid 111 in sealingcontact with rim 106. Rim 105 is attached to rim 106 to attach packagedfood products 100 and 101 to one another. This connection is obscured bylids 110 and 111 but generally extends between points 115 and 116.Packaged food products 100 and 101 can be attached by molding a singlesubstrate and then blow molding two containers from the substrate, forexample. When desired, packaged food products 100 and 101 can be readilydetached from each other through a bending operation about a connectionline extending between points 115 and 116. Since packaged food product101 is nearly identical to packaged food product 100, packaged foodproduct 101 will not be discussed further.

Turning to FIG. 2, packaged food product 100 is shown by itself, withlid 110 peeled partially away from rim 105 to expose a food product 200.Food product 200 is a single serving of a wet pet food, e.g., wet catfood or wet dog food. However, food product 200 can take other forms inother embodiments. Rim 105 and lid 110 form part of a container 205,which is configured to retain food product 200. Container 205 furtherincludes a sidewall 210 extending away from rim 105, with sidewall 210being shown to an annular wall.

In FIG. 3, food product 200 is omitted so that a bottom wall 300 ofcontainer 205 can be seen. Sidewall 210 and bottom wall 300 togetherdefine a storage area 305 in which food product 200 is retained. Asshould be recognized based on FIGS. 2 and 3, food product 200 is incontact with bottom wall 300 during storage and is typically in contactwith at least part of sidewall 210 as well. While one exemplaryarrangement for sidewall 210 and bottom wall 300 has been illustrated,it should be understood that many different arrangements can be used inaccordance with the present invention. In other words, the shape ofstorage area 305 can vary. For example, the single sidewall 210 can bereplaced with multiple walls, or sidewall 210 and bottom wall 300 can becombined, with storage area 305 taking on a hemispherical shape. Ingeneral, container 205 should have at least one wall defining storagearea 305.

Preferably, molding, and more preferably blow molding, is used to createsidewall 210, bottom wall 300 and storage area 305. In a preferred form,a flat plastic substrate in the shape of rim 105 (not shown) issubjected to blow molding to cause the center of the substrate toexpand. The expansion is controlled in such a way that the centerportion becomes sidewall 210 and bottom wall 300, thereby also formingstorage area 305. As a result of this process, sidewall 210 and bottomwall 300 are magnitudes thinner than rim 105. In particular, by thisconstruction, the thickness of sidewall 210 and bottom wall 300 isestablished so that at least one of sidewall 210 and bottom wall 300 isreadily deformable. For purposes of the present invention, by “readilydeformable” it is meant that a user can deform sidewall 210 or bottomwall 300 by hand (i.e., using one or both hands and without any tools)without requiring an above average amount of strength. This allows theuser to push one or both of sidewall 210 and bottom wall 300 inward(i.e., readily collapsing the same into storage area 305) to reduce thevolume of storage area 305. Reducing the volume of storage area 305causes food product 200 to exit storage area 305. As a result, the usercan dispense food product 200 without using a utensil.

While the discussion above focuses on the thickness of sidewall 210 andbottom wall 300, it should be recognized that the shapes of sidewall 210and bottom wall 300 also have an effect on their deformability.Accordingly, this parameter is also adjusted to provide the desireddegree of deformability. In general, at least one of the walls definingstorage area 305 is configured to be readily deformable and has at leasta slight taper from rim 105 as perhaps best shown in FIG. 4. To furtherenhance the collapsing operation, sidewall 210 is also preferably tiered(shown in FIG. 4 with two, upper and lower tiered sections butadditional tiers could be provided).

Turning further to FIG. 4, it can be seen that a portion 400 of rim 105extends beyond sidewall 210. Preferably, portion 400 constitutes anintegrally formed utensil or tool portion which extends beyond sidewall210 by at least 1 centimeter. In some embodiments, such as the oneillustrated, tool portion 400 extends beyond sidewall by 2 or morecentimeters. In combination with the relative thinness of rim 105, thisallows the user to use tool portion 400 like a blade, as shown in FIG.5. In particular, the user can use tool portion 400 to chop or break upfood product 200. To help accomplish this, tool portion 400 ispreferably formed with a plurality of tines 500. Alternatively, toolportion 400 can have serrations (or even a straight or tapered edge). Inaddition, rim 105 has two opposing indents or recessed regions 505,which serve as grip portions to help the user grip container 205 duringchopping. Similarly, sidewall 210 has protrusions 510, which serve asgrip portions to help the user grip container 205 during dispensing offood product 200. A small step 515 near the bottom of sidewall 210 helpscreate lateral rigidity.

Based on the above, it should be readily apparent that the presentinvention provides a way for consumers to serve wet pet food withoutusing a utensil. While certain preferred embodiments of the presentinvention have been set forth, it should be understood that variouschanges or modifications could be made without departing from the spiritof the present invention. In general, the invention is only intended tobe limited by the scope of the following claims.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method of serving a food product from a container including a rim, at least one wall extending away from the rim and defining a storage area retaining the food product, and a tool portion extending from the rim beyond the at least one wall and including a tine extending from a distal end of the tool portion, the method comprising: reducing the volume of the storage area by manually deforming the at least one wall to reduce a volume of the storage area and cause the food product to exit the storage area; and using the tine of the tool portion of the container to break up the food product.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein breaking up the food product includes chopping the food product with the tool portion.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the tool portion extends beyond the at least one wall by at least 1 centimeter.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the tool portion includes at least two spaced tines extending from the distal end of the tool portion.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one wall has a first thickness, the rim has a second thickness, and the second thickness is greater than the first thickness.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one wall includes a bottom wall and at least one sidewall, and the bottom wall and the at least one sidewall together define the storage area, with the at least one sidewall tapering inward from the rim.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the at least one sidewall includes tiered sections and reducing the volume of the storage area includes collapsing the tiered sections.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the container further includes a lid sealed about the rim, said method further comprising peeling the lid from the rim to expose the food product prior to reducing the volume of the storage area.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the food product is a wet cat food or a wet dog food.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one wall constitutes a blow-molded wall which is integral with both the rim and the tool portion.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the container constitutes a first container, and the food product constitutes a first food product, the method further comprising detaching the first container from a second container that is detachably connected to the first container and retains a second food product.
 12. The method of claim 1, wherein the tine is at least partly defined by multiple straight edges.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the tine is further at least partly defined by rounded corners connecting respective ones of the multiple straight edges.
 14. The method of claim 1, wherein the rim includes a recessed region and the method further comprises using the recessed region to grip the container.
 15. The method of claim 6, wherein the sidewall includes a protrusion and the method further comprises using the protrusion to grip the container. 